THE BAD. We begin with a letter to the DALLAS MORNING NEWS but it's applicable to any mainstream media source (newspapers, TV, radio, etc.) THE GOOD. Then ALDEN SCOTT CROW takes a look at the best of the country's indie newspapers. THE NO-AD And finally Musea shows you what a no-ad newspaper would look like.
DEAR DALLAS MORNING NEWS,
I DON'T TRUST YOU BECAUSE:
1. You rush to judgement and too often make mistakes in trying to be first with a story.
2. There is less and less hard news coverage. Sometimes you even put features on the front page.
3. You cover the same 5 major stories as all the other mainstream media. Out of thousands of possible stories, why do all the 100's of media sources always choose the same stories? Does the Washington Post or Wall Street Journal decide what stories ALL the media will talk about each day? It seems like they do.
4. You tend toward excessive coverage of big scandal stories (OJ Trial, Clinton Scandal). You turn news into soap opera while refusing to cover more relevant stories.
5. You tend to focus on human interest stories not issues, thereby, turning reporting into emotional responses rather than factual reporting.
6. Your coverage of issues I know a lot about, are inaccurate.
7. You do too much WHAT IF news; commentary on future possibilities, and too much What-The-Pundits-Think stories, and too little What-Did-Happen news.
8. You push conflict and opposition stories instead of cooperation and support stories.
9. You have almost no international news coverage except an OBSESSIVE coverage of the Arab/Israeli conflict (and it's always ONLY the conflict and not the good aspects of either
culture). And the media refuses to explain why this obsessive coverage is more important to US readers than all other news from Asia, Europe, America, Africa, and Australia combined.
10. You cover only news that appeals to your advertisers (and wins their dollars). All other news is INVISIBLE NEWS (see list)
11. You cover stories that fuel racial discord while refusing to write stories about the growing gulf between the poor and the rich.
12. You seem obsessed with crime stories and gore reports, even though crime is falling in almost all categories. And you refuse to cover issues of that group that is most vulnerable to crime - young black males.
13. You have all the excesses as defined in the term `yellow journalism'.
THE MEDIA AND BIG BIZ:
I DON 'T TRUST YOU BECAUSE:
1. You support big business at every turn. You refuse to cover small business, labor issues, or issues of working people. You are wagged by the tail of advertisers not your readers.
2. Your editorial policy (TV News doesn't even have one anymore) never says anything - always plays it safe- and always is slightly right of center (to appease advertisers while at the
same time not alienating anyone.)
3. You seldom cover both sides of any issue.
4. You mix news/features/and ads till we readers can't tell them apart. And too often features read like press releases.
5. Too much of your paper is fluff or features that are bland and worthless.
6. You seem to favor big business even over democracy. That is. you favor a few rich business conglomerates over the rights and desires of the majority of Americans.
7. You refuse to criticize had or misleading advertising. You refuse to criticize big business excesses . You refuse to criticize big business when its behavior is morally undefendable.
8. You place too much emphasis on profit and too little emphasis on serving the needs of your readers, or our community.
9. Your paper seems not to have any purpose, clear voice, or direction, (with the exception of selling ads).
10. You attack welfare fraud but never even discuss the more costly corporate welfare problems and abuses.
11. Your health coverage is always pro drug companies and anti-prevention or alternative health therapies. And you never talk about the alarming number of injuries and death from prescription drugs and hospital and doctor malpractice.
THE MEDIA AND THE GOVERNMENT:
I DON'T TRUST YOU BECAUSE:
1. Your coverage of government and politics is biased and unfair.
2. Your political coverage is of scandal, not what politicians are doing or not doing for their constituents.
3. Your coverage of the national government (day to day coverage of Congress/ Supreme Court/ Executive Branch) is poor to non-existent. Same with Austin news/ Dallas City Council Meetings and local city politics/ and neighborhood politics.
4. Your political coverage is limited to the 2 major parties and you refuse to cover the positive aspects of any alternative political parties.
5. You complain about government bureaucracy but refuse to name the names of the bureaucrats that are responsible. And you never do follow up stories.
THE MEDIA AND THE ARTS/SPORTS/SCIENCE & MORE
I DON'T TRUST YOU BECAUSE:
1. Your art coverage seems provincial and bland.
2. You concentrate your art coverage on `Society Arts' - symphony, ballet, opera, musicals; anything old, expensive (big ad $$$) and out of date.
3. You refuse to cover contemporary arts or local arts (except with occasional puff articles that are insulting) or any art that is not supported by a lot of ad dollars.
4. You rate arts by sales and promotion dollars, not quality. And you promote Hollywood art (?) with excessive coverage no matter how bad it is.
5. Your hook coverage is extremely poor and limited. And why, after 2 decades of desktop publishing with 1,000's and 1,000's of `zines - still not a word about any of them?
6. Your coverage for children is poor. The comics, for example aren't funny anymore and you have even added ads to the Sunday comics pages (I think that is really scummy behavior on your part)
7. Your coverage of sports is bombastic and excessive.
8. You have virtually no coverage of science and technology (unless your promoting computer equipment sales) or religion & philosophy news.
9. You still think high society has relevance and meaning.
NEWSPAPERS:
I DON'T TRUST YOU BECAUSE:
1. When you became the only paper in town you made promises of fairness, etc. that you did not keep.
2. You're the only paper in town and you act like a monopoly.
3. The product you sell, newspapers, is just not very good. And you don't seem to be doing anything to improve it.
4. You give so little back to our community and you seem impervious to what we want.
5. You are too secretive - as if you have something you're trying to hide.
6. Even with all your emotional pandering, you still seem cold, aloof, and unfeeling.
7. All you newspapers raised you prices at the same time. It LOOKS like price fixing.
8. Your columnists say nothing except the obvious and seem to be filling up space.
9. Your choice of editorial letters from the readers seems slanted, biased, and extremely limited in their range of opinions.
10. You seem out of touch. Your coverage of anything new or exciting is months too late (at the least)
11. And MOST ALARMING OF ALL You refuse to answer critics of the media. The only media introspection you'll allow is from other inside media pundits who always end up praising the media (and lately going to absurd extremes and blaming the READERS on all the media's pandering and sloppy journalism, as if it's something we're demanding!).
12. You boycott critics of the media, like Musea.
"INVISIBLE NEWS" is news the media refuses to talk about (it offends advertisers and limits ad dollars). It includes: Any coverage for people outside of the desired demographic of the advertising department (usually anyone under 20 or over 50); any coverage of labor issues; small business; anti drug company issues, alternative healing therapies; anti car protests; non-society arts, zines, local arts; alternative political parties; minority news, foreign news, neighborhood news; science & technology (other than computer stuff); philosophy and religious news; and any criticism of the media, etc.